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— Your Study Helper
1001875198 Lishuo Zhang (Apper)
1001319227 Yang Wang (Programmer)
1001091178 Xinyun Lv (Programmer)
Words: 1571
1. Introduction
The idea of Focus came from situation where most students found it hard to focus on
their assignments due to the distractions of their phones. The study of Kuznekoff and
Titsworth described in detail in the January issue of The Teaching Professor. Using an
intriguing study design, here’s what they found: “. . . students who use their mobile
phones during class lectures tend to write down less information, recall less information,
and perform worse on a multiple-choice test than those students who abstain from using
their mobile phones during class.”(Kuznekoff & Titsworth, 2013)
It seems that mobile phones are becoming one of the biggest distractions for students in
their daily life. In this way, we wonder if there is an app that can change mobile phones
from distractions into study helpers. For example, why not make the mobile phone as a
sitting posture detector or an efficient timer to show study time and break time.
Therefore, we made Focus.
(Apper context can be found in Section 6: Apper Projects: Apper Context)
2. Overall Design
Improve study efficiency by
conducting Pomodoro technique.
The core function for
Focus is a timer based
on Pomodoro
technique, which is to
break down work into
intervals traditionally 25
minutes in length,
separated by short
breaks. The method is
based on the idea that
frequent breaks can
improve mental agility.
Correct sitting posture while reading or using
laptops. Focus can track user’s
sitting posture by facial
detection technique.
Once the user is too
close to the laptop. A
red rectangle will
appear on the screen to
remind him to sit
correctly. This method is
based on the idea that
good posture benefits
better memory
retention.
Help users take a deep breath to relax their
minds. Before the user starts
his task, Focus will ask
him to take a deep
breath to the
microphone several
times. This method is
based on the idea that
taking a deep breath
can eliminate the
worries and stresses
that are distracting him
and help to focus on his
task easily.
The block diagram consists 10 blocks in total.
• Mission Manager is the central controller which is responsible for getting information
from sensors and database.
• Facial Detector uses Core Image SDK to get face-feature from front camera.
• Sitting Posture Tracker could check whether the user has a good sitting posture by
analyzing the data from Facial Detector.
• Breath Detector uses low passing filter to detect whether the user is exhaling to the
microphone.
• Time Reminder is responsible for measuring the time and helping users to use
pomodoro techniques.
• User information and achievements will be stored in the database. Also, users could
view the information stored in database from Garden Manager.
• Share Extension helps users to share their achievements with their friends and
families.
3. Statement of Functionality & Screen Shots
!
!
!
!
Home screen of Focus
Preparation 1: Relaxing
Breath
This is the Home screen of Focus.
On the top is the Garden where user can
review how many pomodoro he got last week.
In the centre is a 25-minute timer representing
a single pomodoro section. Between two
pomodoro sections, there is a 5-minute break.
On the bottom, there are two buttons: Start
and Get Ready. The Start button is initially
disabled unless the user clicks Get Ready to
do three preparation settings.
This is the Relaxing Breath screen.
In this page, user need to take three
deep breaths according to the
instruction appeared on the screen.
With user exhaling to the
microphone, the balloon will get
bigger until it explodes.
After three deep breathes, the grey
button will be activated and user can
click it and go to Preparation 2:
Sitting Posture Setting.
The balloon becomes bigger with user exhaling to the microphone.
!
!
!
!
Preparation 2: Sitting
Posture Setting
Preparation 3: Choose
Number of Pomodoro
This is the Sitting Posture Setting screen.
When the user enters this screen, a red
rectangle will appear in the top middle screen
to notify user to put his eyes and mouth in this
area. Because this function users Core Image
SDK to get face-feature from front camera to
measure the position of user’s eyes and
mouth.
This is the Preparation 3:
Choose Number of Pomodoro
screen.
The user is asked to fill out
how many pomodoro he wants
to have in this task. Since
each pomodoro represents 25-
minute study time. In other
words, it asks how long the
user wants to study. Once the
number of pomorodo is set,
the timer will count down and
Focus will do its job.
!
!
! ! !
! !
Incorrect Sitting Posture Alert
During each 25-minute study time, Focus will continuously monitor user’s sitting
posture based on the distance data between his eyes and mouth from Facial
Detector. If the user sits too inclined or too low, the main screen will turn into
semitransparent and the red rectangle will appear to ask the user put his head back to
the area.
After 25-minute study, an alert view will
appear to congratulate the user on
completing his study and he will get a
successful pomodoro (red one).
However, if the user chooses to give up
during the process, he can shake the
phone and a warning will pop up. If the
user clicks Confirm, the program will be
cleared and the user will get a spoiled
pomodoro (purple one).
Successful Screen Failed Screen
!
! !
4. What did you learn - what would you do differentlyA. User feedbacks are valuable for iteration. Feedbacks from every spiral presentation gave us inspiration for our next version. It
reminded us that user experience and user test are essential to improve a mobile
application.
B. Improving the code's structure to make it easier to understand, maintain and extend over time.
Before implementation, system architecture is vital. It defines each subsystem’s function
and helps programmers to maintain and extend code over time. Otherwise, we have to
revise every single line whenever we want to add or change functions.
C. Spiral is good. We started our project from two simple functions, Pomodoro Timer and Sitting Posture
Detection. After that, we began to add more functions like Garden and Relaxing Breath
into the project. Such a spiral implementation method helped us focus on a single
Garden Screen Share to Social Media
The Garden is responsible for recording how many pomodoro a user gets in a single day. The user can swipe left or right to see previous day’s achievement. The red one represents successful pomodoro and purple one represents failed pomodoro.
The user can also share his results to Twitter or Facebook to show his study efficiency to friends.
function each time so that we won’t get distracted and frustrated. Therefore, comparing
spiral method to waterfall method, we preferred the former one.
5. Contribution by Group Members
Fucntions Pomodoro Timer
Sitting Posture Reminder
Relaxing Breath
Garden and Share
Lishuo Zhang (Apper)
• Find articles and readings to figure out the answers for questions like how and why Pomodoro technique works, how many times a user need to breath in and out for relaxing their minds.
• Designed the user interface, organised the information architecture, and improved Focus into a user-friendly app.
• Designed the buttons and icons for the app, such as the logo, garden background image and pomodoro icons.
Yang Wang (Programmer)
• Implement multi-thread to ensure the accuracy of timer.
• Used SDK for facial detection determine whether users have a good sitting posture by analysing facial features.
• Connected local database with Twitter API to share user’s data on social networks.
Xinyun Lv (Programmer)
• Merged the 5-min break timer with the 25-min study timer together.
• Used microphone to detect user’s breathing and determined the frequency range of breathing.
• Designed and implemented database to record user’s pomodoro achievements.
6. Apper Projects: Apper Context Before Focus, applications related to pomodoro technique commonly include a to-do list
and a timer. It is a simple design, but such a design also has disadvantages. For
example, it does not make sure that users are focusing on their assignments during 25-
minute period, it does not trigger mobile phone’s fully functionality, and it does not
include any rewards or penalty system to encourage users. Focus changes such a
flawed design.
First, Focus has a sitting posture detector. On one hand, it makes sure the user is sitting
correctly because when sitting up straight, a person is more likely to remember positive
memories or think of something positive in general(Cooper, 2015). On the other hand, it
can prevent users to be distracted during study, because the phone will vibrate once the
user leave the desk. Generally, people think mobile phones are distractions during
study, but the design of Focus make phones into study helpers. It changes people’s
traditional concept. Phones are not harmful if we make them helpful. My favourite
application for last year class is Baton, which changes phones from distractions for
students in class into both teachers’ and students’ helpers. Therefore, I think more
applications can be designed in this way in the near future.
Second, Focus encourages students to study, which previous applications don’t do.
Focus has a Garden where the user can share his results to social media. Expecting to
get praises from friends, the user will try to get more pomodoro. In this way, it allows him
to concentrate efforts on the activities and enhances personal effectiveness.
Finally, Focus has a relaxing breath function helping users to get prepared for what he
is going to do. Such a function is not include in the field of other application. Since
simple breathing exercises are good for immediate stress relief benefits(Mark, 2015),
Focus can help user to relax and do a better job during study.
7. Future Work Focus can be improved in the near future by adding the following functions:
• Add a to-do list to allow users plan their schedules.
• Create a dynamic and versatile interface that responds appropriately to different
iPhones.
• Let users to skip preparations or disable facial detector if they want.
8. Let me know if OK to post video, report and/or
source code on web (or not). Yes, it is okay to post video, report and source code on web.
9. Reference(1) Kuznekoff. J. H. and Titsworth, S. (2013). The impact of mobile phone usage on
student learning. Communication Education, 62 (3), 233-252.
(2) Cirillo, Francesco. "The Pomodoro Technique (The Pomodoro)." Agile Processes in
Software Engineering and 54.2 (2006).
(3) Mark Sisson. “Deep Breathing: How and Why to Do It.” Marks Daily Apple RSS. 16
Dec. 2010. Web. 31 Mar. 2015. <http://www.marksdailyapple.com/deep-breathing/
#axzz3VyVAuXnL>
(4) Cooper, Belle. "The Science of Posture: Sitting up Straight Will Make You Happier,
More Confident and Less Risk-averse." <i>Buffer Social</i>. 11 Nov. 2013. Web. 31
Mar. 2015. <https://blog.bufferapp.com/improve-posture-good-posture-science-
happiness>>